Legality of Cannabis by U.S. Jurisdiction

Eastern Shore of Maryland

The Eastern Shore of Maryland is a part of the U.S. state of Maryland that lies predominantly on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay and consists of nine counties. As of the 2010 census, its population was 449,226, with just under 8 percent of Marylanders living in the region. The term “Eastern Shore” distinguishes a territorial part of the State of Maryland from the Western Shore of Maryland, land west of the Chesapeake Bay.

The counties comprising the Eastern Shore are Caroline, Cecil, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne’s, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico, and Worcester counties. To the south, the Calvert-Scarborough Line separates Maryland from Virginia. A modern Worcester County highway map (PDF) shows this location. While comprising different boundaries than in the 17th-18th century, the Eastern Shore’s geographic definition was set once everyone agreed on where Watkins Point—on the western side of the peninsula—is and where the Bay’s shoreline began (since the bay side peters out into marshes and wetlands).

In 1668, Philip [Calvert] obtained Virginia recognition of Maryland’s claims to present-day Somerset County, surveying a dividing line between the two colonies with Surveyor General of Virginia, Edmund Scarborough. Meanwhile, he negotiated treaties with Lower Eastern Shore Indian tribes harassing English settlers. These treaties defined standards of conduct for Indian-English relations, establishing an overall peace in the region.[1]

A farm in Kent County

The northern limit is harder to locate. Some dispute Cecil County as a true Shore territory due to I-95‘s presence with its surrounding developments, proximity to and influence from nearby urban areas like Philadelphia and Wilmington, and a position straddling the Elk River–leaving 50% west of the Shore.

Like New Castle County, Delaware, Cecil County is crossed by the fall line, a geologic division where the rockier highlands of the Piedmont region meet the Atlantic coastal plain, a flat, sandy area that forms the coast. The coastal plain includes the Delmarva Peninsula and hence the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The geology of Delmarva is an inseparable part of the Eastern Shore, which has few rocky outcrops south of Kent County.

The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal crosses from Back Creek on the Elk River to Port Penn, Delaware. While it was a shallow canal with locks after its construction in 1829, it was deepened in the early 20th century to sea level, and physically separates the Delmarva Peninsula from the rest of the United States. Maryland south of the canal is considered the Eastern Shore by residents. The term Western Shore is used by Eastern Shore residents to describe all the counties of Maryland west of the Chesapeake Bay, but especially those of the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area and Southern Maryland.

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

The north-south section of the Mason–Dixon line forms the border between Maryland and Delaware. The border was originally marked every mile by a stone, and every five miles by a “crownstone”. The line is not quite due north and south, but is as straight as survey methods of the 1760s could make it. It was surveyed as a compromise solution to a century-long wrangle between the Penn and Calvert families of England. If the Chesapeake Bay/Delaware Bay watershed divide had been taken as the borderline, Delaware would be about half its current size.

Finally, although this has received less attention than other parts of Eastern Shore culture, commercial east-west ties between Delaware towns and Maryland towns were culturally significant in Colonial and Early American periods despite the border line (which largely cut through woods and swamps). Trade with Philadelphia was conducted by overland routes to Delaware towns like Odessa (then called Cantwell’s Bridge) and Smyrna (then called Duck Creek). Agricultural products and milled grain were taken up the Delaware River by “shallop men” in small vessels called shallops. These cultural connections continue to this day.

Ocean City is a modern resort on what was once called the “seaside” or “seaboard side.” It is on a long north-south sandspit that is essentially a barrier island.[2]

1642 Kent County-In 1642, the governor and council appointed commissioners for the Isle and County of Kent. This act appears to have led to the establishment of Kent County, name after Kent County, England.

Ocean City was founded on July 4, 1875,[3] when the Atlantic Hotel opened on Assateague Island. At the time, Assateague Island was continuous from the Delaware state line to well south of Ocean City: the Ocean City Inlet was not formed until a hurricane in August 1933 cut across the south end of the town, although the inlet was cut not by waves sweeping inland, but by 4 or 5 days’ worth of freshwater runoff from the coastal creeks running seaward. By 1935, government money had built jetties to make the inlet permanent, dividing Fenwick Island (north) from Assateague Island (south). Early transportation to the island was by train.

As a whole the Eastern Shore is considerably more conservative than the more-populated Western Shore. The region has a history of strongly supporting Republican candidates for governor. Republicans Ellen Sauerbrey in 1994 and 1998, Bob Ehrlich in 2002, 2006 and 2010 and Larry Hogan in 2014 and 2018 swept all nine counties.

At the presidential level, the Eastern Shore also leans Republican, although Kent and Somerset Counties have flipped back and forth for Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. The last Democrat to win Dorchester County was Bill Clinton in 1996; Cecil County has not gone Democratic since Jimmy Carter won the county in 1976, whilst Queen Anne’s, Caroline, Talbot, Wicomico, and Worcester Counties have voted Republican at every election subsequent to Lyndon Johnson’s landslide.[17]

The Eastern Shore has long been a part of Maryland’s 1st Congressional district.[18] Democrat Roy Dyson represented the 1st district from 1981 until he was defeated by Republican Wayne Gilchrest in 1990. Gilchrest held the seat until 2008 when State Senator Andy Harris defeated him in the Republican primary. Harris narrowly lost the subsequent general election to Democratic Queen Anne’s County state’s attorney Frank Kratovil. In 2010, Harris again ran for the district and handily defeated Kratovil after a single term in office. Harris had held the seat without serious difficulty since.

In the Maryland General Assembly, the Eastern Shore encompasses a portion of district 35B and all of districts 35A, 36, 37A and 37B, 38A, 38B and 38C. All seats are held by Republicans except for a state delegate seat in district 37A.

Ocean City’s skyline, containing tall hotels and condominiums, stands out within Delmarva. At the southern end of the town, a recreational boardwalk spans over thirty blocks, containing carnival rides and games, restaurants, bars, arcades, and clothing boutiques.

The main economic activities on the Eastern Shore are vegetable and grain farming, seafood, large-scale chicken breeding (Perdue Farms was founded in Salisbury and is headquartered there today), and tourism. Tobacco was grown during colonial times. The agricultural economy switched to grain in the second quarter of the 18th century.[19][unreliable source?]

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which connects the Eastern Shore with the Baltimore-Washington area and the rest of Maryland

There are three major routes onto the Shore:

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge spans 4.35 miles (7.00 km) of the Chesapeake Bay, and at the time of construction in 1952, was the longest continuous over-water steel structure.[20] A second parallel span was added in 1973 and a third has been discussed, most recently in 2006. A third span will not open, according to state officials, until about 2025. The bridges made Kent Island, site of the first English settlement on the Shore, into a bedroom community for Washington, Annapolis, and Baltimore. Kent Island is part of Queen Anne’s County.

The Eastern Shore has made several attempts to separate from Maryland. Proposals were debated in Maryland’s General Assembly in 1833–1835, 1852, and 1998. There were earlier proposals visualizing a state encompassing the Delmarva Peninsula. The 1998 proposal by state Senators Richard F. Colburn and J. Lowell Stoltzfus did not specify a status for Eastern Shore’s nine counties following secession, but suggested the new state’s name could be “Delmarva”.[27]

Salisbury hosts the largest bicycling event east of the Mississippi – the Sea Gull Century and two major Maryland wine and craft beer festivals.[citation needed]

Easton hosts a three-day artist event, the Waterfowl Festival, every November.
Duck and goose hunting from blinds is a popular activity using carved wooden duck decoys, which can also be prized works of art.[28]